DISCIPLINE AND PUNISH: As the slow response — and continued cases of denial — with regard to the Bellesiles affair illustrate, things have gotten bad enough where academic standards are concerned that even Stanley Fish is sounding like a traditionalist:

One suspects, that is, that the reluctance to act is a principle, not a principle rooted in the right of everyone to a confront his or her accusers in a public hearing, but a principle rooted in something like class prejudice. The idea is that, generally speaking, people like us — people who have degrees and publications and who while away the time by reading French or German poetry in the original — are “naturally” responsible; and even if we occasionally seem to be slighting the job, our reasons, were they plumbed and brought to the surface, would turn out to be good and even noble. We might now and then fail to live up to the letter of our mundane obligations, but even in doing so we would no doubt be hearkening to the higher imperative of the spirit.

True enough, though one would expect to hear this from some curmudgeonly right-winger, not from Stanley Fish. Or maybe his new enthusiasm for academic discipline is just a consequence of his having been a dean for a while. . . .

Think I’m exaggerating about Bellesiles? Read this statement by Columbia University historian Ken Jackson (scroll down) who says, in essence, that the Bancroft Prize shouldn’t be revoked, because even its wrongful award is now just a part of history and thus shouldn’t be changed.

(In a probably unrelated development, Emory President William Chace is stepping down.)

UPDATE: Here, by the way, is something I wrote about academics and accountability last year.